Be All My Sins Remembered
by cityofmist
Summary: 'Everybody needs something different from him; and he is so very, very tired.' Ah, hindsight: this is the scene from 'Family Matters' where Castiel 'diagnoses' Sam, since the truth about that one came out in 'The Man Who Would Be King.'


Dean's eyes are wide and too-bright when Castiel arrives, and he smiles with gratitude. 'Hey, you're here.'

He sounded distressed, when Castiel heard his prayers and flew to his side. _Cas, there's something wrong with Sam…I'm not sure…I need your help, man._

This is nothing new; Castiel is used to Dean's desperate entreaties in times of need, Dean's casual requests for help when he hasn't the energy to fix a situation by himself, Dean's calling up to Heaven when he's bored. He always answers. He listened to Sam's quiet, measured prayers and turned away, unable to face him, but he has never ignored Dean since the day they met, no matter how petulant, illogical or unnecessary his demands, and he doesn't know how to start now.

'I'm busy, Dean,' Castiel says tersely. 'Is this important?'

'Yes,' Dean says shortly, with resentment cutting at the edges of the word.

'What's wrong?' Castiel asks, cutting to the chase in the hope that he can get back to his soldiers without wasting too much time. 'Sam's hurt?'

'No,' Dean says. 'Well, yeah, actually, but…you know.'

'I don't know,' Castiel tells him.

'I think there's something wrong with him. Kind of…God, I don't know, but it seems like it's your line of business. He's acting…not like himself. It's like he's a totally different person.'

An alteration in personality. Right. Castiel sighs; he foresees this taking a while. 'Where is he?'

Dean opens the door to what Castiel presumes is their hotel room.

Sam is sitting in the middle of it, unconscious and tied to a chair.

Admittedly, this is strange.

Castiel walks over to him, and from by the door Dean says, 'I, um, sort of hit him. A few times. He's okay, right?' There is a pause. Dean does not offer an explanation as to _why _he decided to beat his brother into unconsciousness, and Castiel does not ask for one; he has known the Winchesters for over two years now, and after a certain length of time their absurd levels of dysfunctionality ceased to surprise him.

'He doesn't seem severely injured,' Castiel says. There is some blood on Sam's face, the beginnings of several bruises, but he is hardly badly hurt, especially in comparison to the vastly more serious injuries Dean must have seen his brother sustain through a life of hunting. Castiel suspects he will be awake within a few minutes. Dean seems a little on edge, though, and self-flagellation is his emotional strong suit; he will probably spend the next few days worrying himself over this, until he commits another minor transgression for which to reproach himself and forgets about the one preceding.

'You sure? I mean, you know, he's unconscious.'

'You're right, he looks awful,' Castiel says sardonically, as he leans over to look at Sam's face more closely. 'You did this?'

In the chair, Sam stirs, and Dean ignores Castiel; immediately his focus whips round to his brother with an intense, concentrated stare.

'Cas?' Sam mutters, looking up. His wrists move, catch at the ropes binding him. 'Let me go.'

'Have you been feverish?' Castiel asks shortly.

'Have you?' Dean snaps, from behind him.

'No,' Sam says, frowning.

'Has he been speaking in tongues?' Castiel asks Dean, before recollecting that Dean and Sam have been living separate lives for a year and Dean probably has no idea. 'Are you speaking in tongues?' he says to Sam.

'No! What are you - Are you _diagnosing _me?'

'You better hope he _can,_' Dean says, sharp with anger, before Castiel can answer that he's not really sure what's going on but yes, probably.

Sam raises an eyebrow as Castiel checks his pulse - a little slower than he might have expected, but nothing untoward. 'You really think that this is - '

'What, you think there's a clinic out there for people who pop out of Hell wrong?' Dean bites out, and a thought crosses Castiel's mind, icing over all the other thoughts it passes on its way. 'He asks, you answer, then you shut your hole, you got it?'

_Oh, no - _

Castiel does not want to consider it, but..,

_Pop out of Hell wrong…No. _No. _It's not _possible.

Sam is irritably silent; Dean is glaring murderously at his brother; Castiel collects himself and tries to remember anything he knows about people without -

'How much do you sleep?' he murmurs.

There is a pause, then Sam says reluctantly, 'I don't.'

Oh, no. Oh, no. 'At _all_?' Dean cuts in incredulously.

'Not since I got back,' Sam says quietly.

'And it never occurred to you that there might be something off about that?' Dean snaps.

'Of course it did, Dean.' In contrast to his brother, Sam sounds quietly exasperated more than anything else. 'I…I just never told you.'

Castiel looks at Dean. All of his attention is spotlighted on his brother; he takes Castiel's presence for granted, with his continual, insouciant requests for help or healing or company, and it annoys Castiel intensely, but at least he knows that Dean trusts him.

How will Dean trust him, after this?

'Sam,' he says carefully, 'what are you feeling, now?'

Sam makes a quiet noise of sarcasm. 'I feel like my nose is broken,' he says, flicking an irritated glance at Dean.

'No, that's a physical sensation. How do you feel?'

'I - I think - '

'_Feel_,' Castiel stresses.

'I…don't know,' Sam says slowly.

Castiel glances at Dean again, then reaches down to take off his belt. Sam's expression is momentarily comical. 'Wha - '

Castiel cuts him off. 'This will be unpleasant,' he says, doubling over the belt and placing it in Sam's mouth, rolling up his right sleeve. 'Bite down on this.' Wondering whether Sam needs comfort, he casts around for something helpful and says, 'If there's some place that you find soothing, you should go there.' Sam looks up at him with wide, confused eyes, and Castiel clarifies, 'In your mind.'

He clears his mind and gently pushes his hand into Sam's chest, sliding James Novak's hand and through it his Grace into the spaces between dimensions. He is dimly aware of Sam moaning into the belt, but he needs to focus his concentration, find the right plane and - yes, there. Castiel searches for a few seconds that seem to stretch for far longer, and -

_Oh, no_. There is a sickening jolt of confirmation in his chest, and Castiel wants nothing more than to disappear and avoid the Winchesters for several decades as he withdraws his hand and feels Dean's eyes burning into his back, searing him with questions he doesn't want to answer.

_I wanted to help_, Castiel thinks stupidly to himself_, _and _How did it go this wrong?_

'You find anything?' Dean presses him.

'No,' he says quietly. He can't meet Dean's eyes.

'So that's…good news?' Hope and pessimism twist together in Dean's voice, and Castiel feels guilt clotting in his throat as he speaks.

'I'm afraid not,' he says, and adds pointlessly, 'Physically, he's perfectly healthy.'

'Then what?'

'It's his soul,' Castiel forces out, trying to smooth the torn, guilty edges of his voice. 'It's gone.'

'What?' says Sam sharply.

Dean is staring, open-mouthed at Castiel; his eyes move to Sam, then return to Castiel, then back to Sam again. 'His soul is…'

'Gone,' Castiel says flatly.

'What?' Sam says, louder.

'What, you mean he sold it or…'

'No. If he'd sold it, it would still be in his body, but - '

'I'm sorry, Cas,' Sam snaps, 'just, you know, sorry to interrupt your and Dean's conversation there, but _what_?'

Castiel looks down at Sam. 'Your soul's not in your body,' he says. 'If you'd sold it it would still be present, but marked for a certain demon after your death. You are…completely without a soul. I've never seen this before. I've heard about it, but…'

'I'm sorry,' Dean says, pacing across the room; when he turns to face Castiel, his eyes are wide with fear. Another jolt of guilt. 'One more time. Like I'm _five_. What do you mean, he's got no - '

'Somehow, when Sam was resurrected, it was without his soul.' _The cage_, he thinks. _It seemed so easy - it _shouldn't _have been that easy - I should have _known_. This is my fault. _

'So where _is _it?' Dean snaps.

'My guess is…still in the cage, with Michael, and Lucifer.' Castiel imagines what his brothers might be doing in that cage, and then stops, feeling slightly nauseated.

'So is he even still _Sam_?'

Castiel looks at Sam Winchester, who still looks more exasperated with his brother than angry; he rolls his eyes and glares at Dean. 'Well,' Castiel says, 'you pose an interesting philosophical question.'

'Well, then, just get it back,' Dean says calmly, as if it's so simple.

'Dean…' Castiel says, thinking, _I'm sorry._

'Well, you pulled me out.'

'It took several angels to rescue you. You weren't nearly as well-guarded. Sam's soul is in _Lucifer's _cage; there's a difference. A big difference.' _I tried and failed_, he wants to say, _I can't do it again._

'There's got to be a way,' Dean says desperately.

'So, are you going to untie me?' Sam says conversationally. Behind the chair, he is working his wrists out of the ropes, Castiel notices. He does not comment.

'No!' Dean snaps.

'Listen,' says Sam, 'I'm not going to - '

'Sam, how am I even supposed to let you out of this room?' Dean says angrily, and Castiel stops paying attention to their bickering. He turns away, looks out of the hotel window, to the white-clouded sky.

He failed, then.

He'd been euphoric with power and victory, and he'd seen Dean's face after his brother jumped into Hell. He'd wanted to make Dean happy. He'd wanted to save Sam.

He thought he _had_. And he's only made things a thousand times worse. When Dean finds out, he'll - Castiel has no idea what he'll do, but he feels himself recoiling when he so much as thinks about it.

_But Sam doesn't know I raised him_, Castiel thinks, with a sudden clarity, and he knows. He has to keep it that way. Keeping secrets from the Winchesters is difficult - he has not done so since he deserted Heaven at Dean's behest - but he is becoming more practised with time. One more will make little difference.

He heals Sam's superficial injuries when Dean asks him, and wishes he could fix the greater problem, the one _he _was stupid enough to cause. He was flying on euphoria and confidence when he pulled Sam from the grave, and his mistake went unnoticed; Castiel could scream with self-reproach. Dean is saying something else, and Castiel shakes himself back to attention: '…who's got that kind of muscle?' Dean finishes. He's looking at Castiel.

_It was me_, he hears himself saying inside his head. _I raised you, Sam, and I didn't realise, and I'm so sorry._

His imagination goes a little further and he hears what Sam and Dean would say back, and certainty crystallises in his veins: _they can't know._

'I don't know,' he says, not meeting Dean's eyes. 'You have no…memory of your resurrection?' he asks Sam.

'I woke up in a field,' Sam says. 'That's all I got.'

'No clues?' Castiel presses. 'None?'

'I've got one,' Sam says suddenly, and Castiel freezes. 'Samuel. He came back at the same time, remember?'

'Okay,' says Dean firmly. 'We're going to go have a chat with the Campbells.' He glances at Castiel with an unspoken question.

'I can't,' Castiel says. 'I have to return to Heaven. I have been away too long already.'

'Sure, yeah,' Dean says. 'Just…don't be a stranger, okay?'

Castiel appreciates the irony of that, at least. Dean thinks he knows Castiel, and every time he sees the Winchesters he has to play his part: Dean's Friend Cas. It's exhausting.

'I hope Samuel can tell you what you need to know,' Castiel says tonelessly, before he leaves, and goes to find Rachel and find out how many of his angels have been slaughtered since he last checked (he's thinking 'low thirties'). For her, he has to become Rachel's Fearless Leader; another stifling mantle to wear.

Castiel is always trying desperately to be what he is not, what people need him to be, and everybody needs something different from him; and he is so very, very tired.


End file.
